Take Another Look by Rosalind Noonan Page B

nap, Jane and Marnie showered and primped, giddy with the potential of another night out on the Docks, the string of bars and saloons that stretched along the river at the edge of town. Each night they met new urban professionals and reconnected with old friends. They scored free vodka tonics and lemon drops from guys who wanted nothing more than light conversation and a few laughs. They sang the angry anthems of Sarah McLachlan and Paula Cole, wondering “Where have all the cowboys gone?” They knew all the words to the Beach Boys tunes that peppered every beach party. But Jane and Marnie had agreed that their theme song for the summer would be Sheryl Crow’s “All I Wanna Do.” They were in it for the fun.
    â€œWe deserve it, after all these years of busting our buns in school,” Marnie had declared.
    Like the female singers who flung their bitterness through every jukebox and radio, Jane considered herself to be stoic and smart, exquisite and sophisticated. But beneath all the labels, some earned through years of school and some recently acquired through weight loss and exercise, Jane was mostly a romantic, a needy young woman in search of the hero who would sweep her off her feet. For the first time in her life she had a job, some money to play with, an apartment away from the folks, and the power to turn heads when she walked into a bar. Freedom was sweet, but coupled with a whiff of sexual attraction, it was a spicy dish, too hot for a timid heart.
    And it had been the summer of fun. Marnie developed a crush on Jason, a bartender at one of their hangouts on the Docks. Jane remained unattached. But unlike the wallflower school days of awkward pity hookups, Jane’s solo status now felt like a journey of independence. She had lost twenty pounds, and that made all the difference. Men gravitated toward her, and women wanted to be her friends. For the most part, Jane basked in the glow of male attention. Oh, there were vile, hungry looks here and there, but she found most guys to be polite. They enjoyed her little stories. They liked to laugh, as she did. And some of them were downright chivalrous, holding doors, giving up their bar stools, buying her a drink, or walking her to her car.
    The golden days and indigo nights of summer passed all too quickly. Although Jane looked forward to her first year of full-time teaching, she hated to see her glorious lifestyle dwindle away. There would be no more trips to the coast for a while, and their obligation to chaperone school football games meant the nights at the Docks would be few and far between. “Our reign is ending,” Marnie had said with a cute pout of her full lips.
    When the summer began to wane, Jane and Marnie joined the other revelers in a countdown the last week of August. The town of Burnson had a darkly comic tradition of staging a Labor Day parade, during which marchers carried makeshift balsa-wood coffins to bury the summer. Most of the bars on the Docks entered a coffin in the legendary best-coffin competition. The bar where Jason worked, Smackdaddy’s, was relying on patrons to decorate theirs. The owner had assembled it in his garage, and now the small wooden box was set up on a table in the bar. Tubes of paint, brushes, and markers were set up for customers to decorate the coffin as they saw fit.
    â€œThat is just pathetic.” Marnie shook her head at the coffin, which sported a few poorly rendered flames and skulls. “A class of kindergartners could do better.”
    Jane pushed back the sleeves of her denim jacket. “Come on, Marnie. Let’s show them how a proper art project is done.”
    They decided to cover the box with swirls and stars in bright colors, reminiscent of Vincent van Gogh’s Starry Night painting. Jane focused on making a deep blue sky and a simple green landscape with pointed cypress trees while Marnie painted in glistening swirls of silver, white, and yellow.
    It was a typical